First Gen MBP, Bad Fan Sensor?

for awhile now i've been reading up on the thermal grease threads and thinking that was the problem with my mbp being really hot. then i started looking into the fans. for awhile i wouldnt hear anything at all. all the programs i have running such as istat and smcfancontroll shows there are no fans running. i just did the pram and smc reset and now i can sorta hear the left fan running. nothing on the right fan. it still shows no fans running on the two programs. do i have some type of bad sensor or something. seems like i might have to open it up to fix one of the fans but i cant really tell if its the fans thats busted or its the sensor. any help is appreciated.

Edit: Woops, it helps to not watch TV at the same time replying to a post.

I might be inclined to try something that adds stress to see if the fans kick in, but of course that risks possible hardware damage.

Okay, so the fans don't show proper data - how are your temps otherwise?

Also, if you have no problems taking off your case (it's really not that bad), then it might be worth checking if the fans rotate freely, and to check to see if everything cabled properly. If you can track down the MBP service manual PDF, then you can check all the temperature sensors as well.

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